No more stores will be opening in Slovakia for the next week, meaning tens of thousands of people will have to continue staying at home rather than going to work. The decision was defended by prime minister Igor Matovič, who said that allowing stores to begin selling again too soon could kill the Slovak economy. “Let’s not fool people by saying that the economy will collapse if I don’t open the stores,” he said. “That’s simply not true…Our economy is dependent on exports. If by irresponsibly opening stores we infect more factory workers, we’ll hurt the economy more than we help it.” The prime minister promised to present a plan for the gradual reopening of stores by next Monday. But he warned that outlets with high concentrations of people like restaurants, bars, discos and hair dressers would be the last to open. Matovič is coming under intense pressure for his cautious approach to re-starting the economy. It’s not just that the country has less than 1,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, but its neighbor Austria has already begun loosening restrictions on store openings and the Czech Republic has just announced its own timetable.
